Walmart worker gets called in for last-minute shift — and wins a $1 million
Gonzalez put her two-week notice in at work after her big win
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Your support makes all the difference.A California Walmart worker who covered a coworker's shift wound up walking out of the store $1 million richer thanks to a lucky lotto purchase.
Rebeca Gonzalez was enjoying her Labor Day weekend when she got a phone call from the City of Industry Walmart where she works as the store was short staffed during the busy holiday and needed an extra hand.
No one wants to be called in on a weekend, but Gonzalez went in to do her job.
She told the Los Angeles Times that she had planned to buy a scratch-off lotto ticket during her lunch break, but the rush of customers was so great that she had to put off the purchase until the end of her shift. She almost left without buying the ticket — her family was having a holiday barbecue and she wanted to get home — but remembered at the last moment and went back to pick up a scratcher.
Gonzalez had been buying two scratchers a month just to see if she could wring a little extra money out of the state's lottery, but the most she'd ever won was $50.
That day was different; that day, she won a million dollars.
“I’ve only told one person at work, and it was the manager who wanted me to stay late on a holiday,” she said. “He couldn’t believe it.”
She started buying scratch-offs because her father kept the same twice a month habit, she told the Times. Gonzalez never expected to win big — it was just a fun game of chance to her, something to bring a little harmless excitement and suspense to her life.
Gonzalez was fully ready to skip out on the ticket, but found a $10 bill in her pocket left over from a shaved ice that her daughter had bought. That was the bill she used to buy her scratcher.
The change from a shaved ice changed her life.
She's put in her two week notice at work to focus on her schooling to become a radiologist, and has put in a bid on a five-bedroom home for her and her family. Gonzalez also used some of her winnings to help clear most of her debts.
While the Walmart that sold the winning ticket will be losing a worker when Gonzalez leaves, the store also got a cut of the prize, earning $5,000 for selling the winning ticket.
When she told her family about her win, she said they began to cry.
Security footage captured the moment that the state's lottery commission verified her win. Once she knew for sure that the dream was real and wouldn't be yanked out from under her at the last moment, she began jumping up and down outside a local liquor store where the win was verified.
She said she broke out into celebration and thanked God, "because this is a blessing."
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